Archive for Sierpień, 2011

More than 75 percent of consumers across all age groups in markets all around the globe are already watching video content over the Internet via televisions, PCs, smart phones, tablets and mobile devices - and a growing slew of other new-age devices, a phenomenon that is going to carry on growing as the world continues to embrace being truly part of the digital world.

“As broadband becomes more readily available – including in Africa – more and more people are becoming serious online video consumers, a phenomenon that is going to change the face of the world we live in”, said Andrew Aitken, a director of IP video specialist, Antfarm.

He said Internet video-watching is rife across the most profitable demographics, namely 85 percent of the 18 to 24 year-olds, 84 percent of 25 to 34 year-olds and 82 percent of 35-44 year-olds.

“This is a market that is going to take off. We are going to see a similar acceleration to what we experienced when cellular phones first arrived on South African shores. The uptake was far more rapid than expected and, today, almost every adult in SA is a cellular phone owner. It is ubiquitous. The use of on-line video – for personal and business purposes – will rapidly become just as commonplace.”

Commenting further, Antfarm’s Aitken said broadband is “really starting to churn up the waters” as people get used to – and expect – the ‘connected life’. Cisco and local research company, World Wide Worx, recently announced that the number of South Africans accessing the Internet via broadband connections has grown more than 50 percent in the past year (2010 figures), a direct consequence of the growing need for 24 x7 connectivity.

This reality was a key finding of the Internet Access in South Africa 2010 study conducted by World Wide Worx in collaboration with Cisco. The study also reveals that wireless broadband has been growing almost three times as fast as fixed line broadband in South Africa.

This growth, it would appear, points to the fact that most of the growth in fixed line broadband emanates from small and medium enterprises (SMEs) upgrading to ADSL. This has provided Internet access to more than half a million South Africans working in small offices, who previously did not enjoy access.

Wireless broadband, meanwhile, is mainly as a result of large companies giving 3G cards to employees who need to be connected while out of the office.

The report shows that wireless broadband subscription has grown by 88% in the past year, against 21% for ADSL. Corporate users have been the primary catalyst for growth, through the deployment of 3G cards.

The campaign, called Relief for Somalia, is part of Vodacom’s aim to use mobile phones for good and is aimed at raising funds for hunger-stricken Somali’s who are in desperate need of water and food relief.

Vodacom customers can donate up to R200 in multiples of R5, via the SMS line 38207.

Vodacom also pledged to match the amount raised by customers and has waived any charges associated with the use of SMS to ensure that 100% of donations are handed over to the South African Red Cross Society (SARCS), who are coordinating our relief efforts in support of Somalia.

The UN’s umbrella humanitarian agency OCHA (Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs) said the “crisis in southern Somalia is expected to continue to worsen through 2011, with all areas of the south slipping into famine.”

“We are deeply disturbed by the situation in Somalia and we think that our customers are too. South Africans are eager to contribute towards this cause and it made sense to create a platform that will make it easy for them to pledge their support. The Relief for Somalia SMS line is open from today,” says Mthobi Tyamzashe, Executive Director for CSI at Vodacom.

Giving back to the community is a big part of Vodacom’s brand philosophy to use mobile phones to do good and this initiative enables the network, its customers and staff to jointly express support for the victims in Somalia.

“We are very pleased that Vodacom and its customers are joining our efforts to bring relief to those in Somalia. Our aim is to support the feeding programs for malnourished children and ensuring drinking water for hundreds of thousands of people are a priority for Red Cross,” said Mandisa Kalako Williams, Secretary General of SARCS.

The funds raised will be used to purchase food, hygiene packs and water purification tablets for the relief operation.

Dell has unveiled its Vostro 3000 series laptops with 12 hours of battery life on select models and cutting-edge virtual collaboration solutions.

Available in 13-, 15- and 17-inch, the Dell Vostro 3000 Series packs the latest Intel 2nd generation Core I Series processors into a sleek design without compromising battery life. The Vostro 3000 is the first small-business laptop to feature voice enhancing technology SRS Premium Voice Pro software. A full HD webcam offered with the 13-, 15- and 17-inch laptops enables lifelike interactions with co-workers and customers, while a digital array mic helps reduce ambient noise, giving small businesses a virtual collaboration solution that’s fast and clear.

“Whether you are pitching, analysing, partnering or managing, the new Vostro 3000 series is designed to keep you collaborating with colleagues, partners and clients,” said Gavin Slevin, Dell South Africa and developing countries retail manager. “With the latest Vostro collaboration enhancements, entrepreneurs have a sleek, capable technology tool that helps them impress no matter the size of their business or technology budget.”

ProSupport to Simplify IT: Businesses can choose their own level of 24×7 IT support with optional Dell ProSupport services

“In this age of 24×7 communications, it is critical for small and mid-sized businesses to connect with their clients and employees regardless of location or time zone,” said Slevin. “Small businesses are ready for the kinds of collaboration capabilities Dell is introducing in the Vostro 3000 series to get them to the next level of productivity.”

Vostro 3000 Series – Pricing and Availability

13-inch 3350 SAPP – R10,999.95

15-inch 3550 SAPP – R9,999.95

17-inch 3750 SAPP – R11,995.95

The Vostro 3350, 3450, 3550 and 3750 models are available at Incredible Connection.

Jump Shopping along with the public’s votes, will be evaluating nominated websites in a 3 Round Voting and Evaluation process to determine this year’s winners.

The Public Nomination round will determine the top 40 websites, those that received the most public votes. In Round 2 an initial evaluation conducted by Jump Shopping of the top 40 websites, together with the public’s votes from Round 1 and Round 2, will provide the top 20 contenders for Round 3. Nomination and Voting will be open from 1 August 2011 and will close on 30 September 2011. In the 3rd and final E-Commerce Process Evaluation round, Jump Shopping will be making extensive use of the top 20 websites to evaluate their respective ordering processes, customer service, as well as the websites design standards and ease of use. The Winners will be announced on 7 November 2011.

“With the growth shown in the South African e-commerce industry during the last year, we are excited to see which way the public vote will go this year. With social media being embraced and utilized to a greater extent, marketing and building a loyal customer base has become even easier than before. We see the South African E-commerce Awards as a measure of success and public perception surrounding e-commerce brands. We definitely think this year’s awards are going to be the biggest one yet and to help incentivise the public’s interest, Jump Shopping together with ShopMaster will be giving away an Apple iPad 2 to one lucky voter.” said Jaco Roux, Managing Director of Jump Shopping.

Jump Shopping identified the opportunity for such an awards event in 2006, and took the opportunity to start this as part of their goal to uplift E-Commerce in South Africa. The awards are now in its sixth year. These awards have been designed to recognise and reward those companies and organisations that have demonstrated excellence through the use of the Internet, with specific emphasis on E-Commerce. The Awards are only open to South African E-Commerce websites.

As an online comparative shopping search engine Jump Shopping connect online shoppers to online shops by listing millions of products from hundreds of South African online stores in one place, making it easier for consumers to shop online by being able to make informed decisions through comparing prices and products.

Hosted by Telkom, the three day conference will see captains of industry deliver a number of keynote presentations around the conference theme: Social Communications: challenging the limits of technology and innovation.

The topical theme was chosen in line with recent predictions by international ICT researcher, Gartner, that by 2016 social technologies will be integrated with most business applications. Gartner advises that companies should bring together their social Customer Relationship Management, internal communications and collaboration, and public social site initiatives into a co-ordinated strategy.

“Social communication is fast going beyond the consumer and lifestyle realms to becoming a corporate necessity. The challenge, from a technology perspective, is to enable ongoing social communication which will require much innovation and collaboration,” explained Conference Chairman Marius Mostert.

To kick off this exciting conference, Anton Musgrave of FutureWorld SA will deliver the opening keynote address entitled: “Naked Leadership”. He will discuss the world of openness, transparency, open innovation and new accountability focusing heavily on the technology themes driving these core issues.

The conference provides a platform for industry, academia and operators within the Information Communications and Technology (ICT) sector to share views on key challenges facing the industry, and to discuss the progress achieved in applied research.

The programme also provides industry with an opportunity to engage with students working on various projects at the Telkom Centres of Excellence. Several post-graduate students from the 16 Telkom Centres of Excellence will present their research projects at the conference.

“It is often said that there is too little interaction between academic institutions and industry. SATNAC provides that opportunity for industry to influence tertiary institutions to become more outcome-focused and prepare engineers for their roles when they enter the workplace,” said Mostert.

SATNAC 2011 will be held in East London from 4 to 7 September at the East London International Convention Centre. All registrations have to be completed online (www.satnac.org.za).

The conference starts with a Welcome Function on Sunday evening. The traditional icebreaker golf day will begin at 09:30 on Sunday at the East London Golf Club.

Summit TV, the official broadcast partner for the conference, will broadcast the plenary sessions live and will also broadcast a highlights package in the week after the conference. Summit TV is available on DSTV Channel 412

Launched in 1986 as Integrated Tertiary Software, ITS has grown from a four-person organisation as a specialist provider of educational administrative software to a fully-fledged global enterprise providing ERP solutions to more than 50 clients across Southern Africa, Europe, Australasia.

Managing director, Derick Jordaan, says the company is proud of this significant milestone; a highlight of which he says was becoming a wholly owned subsidiary of Adapt IT Group. “It is a privilege to be part of South Africa’s Top ICT Empowered Company. It provides ITS with impressive credentials and makes us a bigger and stronger player in the market.”

Sbu Shabalala, CEO of Adapt IT Group applauds ITS for what he says is obviously a very well run business. “There are not many companies that can boast 25 successful years in business and we are very proud that a subsidiary of ours is celebrating such an impressive achievement.” He says that ITS has a solid track record, which is vital for any IT company’s survival. “Customers rely on companies such as ITS to provide both strategic guidance in terms of the solution selected as well as the experience of how to streamline implementation and usage. Reaching this goal demonstrates ITS’ ability to effectively service their customers with a comprehensive selection of services and solutions, which places the company in a good position for continued growth in the market.”

“ITS is one of a few globally recognised providers of enterprise software solutions for the higher and further education sector and we have been extremely successful in securing significant market share throughout our 25 years.” Jordaan says the company has secured 15 of the 23 South African universities and 13 of the 50 public further education and training courses (FET) colleges.

The market has evolved from simply requiring an integrated real time ERP solution to wanting web enabled back and front office solutions with a self service interface for both students and institutional personnel, says Jordaan. “Registration was originally a paper-based operation and ITS introduced the first real-time registration process. This has evolved thanks to the sector embracing technology and realising the immense benefits it provides to educational institutions.”

According to Jordaan the next technology evolution for educational institutions is to embrace mobile computing. “Having the ability to access an institution via any mobile device will become essential. ITS has put a task team in place to provide student-focused mobile solutions. This will provide the necessary extension of our services to current customers as well as reaching new users across the globe.”

Pieter Campbell, Technical Executive Manager, one of the founding members of ITS, says that ITS has been successful as a result of the calibre of its people. “A large percentage of our employees have previous work experience in the education sector. This has ensured that ITS has a very good understanding of the sector and what it requires from its software systems.”

Campbell says the rich experience and legacy that ITS employees hold in the sector, paved the way for the creation of end to end business and technology solutions that are tailored to meet the exact requirements of each educational institution.

The challenge he foresees is the increasing volume of learners entering the institutions. “The growth in student numbers are staggering with intake at a major university in Gauteng expanding from 10 000 to 45 000 over the past few years. “The Tshwane University of Technology has approximately 50 000 students and is still growing. It places tremendous pressure on educational institutions in terms of service delivery for students and employees.” Jordaan says it is up to companies such as ITS to meet and manage these needs from an IT solutions perspective.

“Our proven track record in designing, development, implementing and management of innovative business solutions has allowed us to grow into a successful African company with a global footprint. With over 25 years of experience we understand that businesses need a comprehensive range of ?exible, adaptable technology solutions that can keep them connected and communicating.”

The milestone not only points to certificates as a critical foundation for protecting sensitive customer data today, but also for IT, mobile and cloud security solutions in the future.

Certificates enable the strong authentication, email encryption and digital signature applications essential to secure sensitive data against increasingly frequent, targeted, and severe cyber attacks. Managing certificates through Public Key Infrastructure (PKI) is critically important, especially on the skyrocketing number of mobile and cloud-based applications and devices worldwide. The global explosion of mobile and cloud deployments – as well as the emergence of nontraditional PKI applications like securing smart grids – are among many reasons that certificate-based PKI is more important than ever.

Unmatched Capability

As one of the largest Certificate Authorities (CAs) and PKI providers in the world, Symantec enables IT security architects to address a wide range of tactical security challenges with scalable, flexible, and reliable enterprise solutions that can meet both current and future needs. Designed for the cloud, Symantec PKI – now in its third generation – is built from the ground up as a secure, scalable, multi-tenant cloud-based service that helps protect customer data and preserve customer trust.

A Legacy of Trust

Symantec has a strong reputation of securing critical Internet infrastructure, with its root certificates ubiquitous among major browsers. Symantec’s many government certifications and approvals prove not only the depth of its expertise, but also its track record of running PKI in the cloud. A broad range of customers includes large enterprises, national governments, device manufacturers such as WiMAX and CableLabs, CI+, and Symantec’s own global affiliate network.

Symantec Managed PKI Service

Traditional certificate-based PKI solutions have historically been complex and costly to use, deploy and operate. To specifically address these challenges, Symantec Managed PKI Service, is a new cloud-based offering that makes protection of sensitive data easier and more cost-effective. The cloud-based approach dramatically lowers the cost and complexity of establishing PKI-based solutions, while new automation capabilities significantly reduce end-user and IT intervention and preserve business continuity. Symantec Managed PKI Service revolutionises the focus of PKI from infrastructure to delivering applications that address customers’ real-world problems.

Symantec PKI and Symantec Managed PKI Service are available now. Existing Symantec PKI customers with a valid maintenance contract are entitled to perform a simple upgrade to Symantec Managed PKI Service at no additional cost.

“Hitting a quarter-billion user and device certificates is a huge milestone that reflects the success we’ve had enabling large commercial and government organisations to improve their security through certificate-based PKI. Symantec Managed PKI Service will only accelerate the adoption of cloud-based certificate solutions to power the next generation of security applications and the organisations that will increasingly rely on them.” Adam Geller, senior director, User Authentication, Symantec.

Pervasive converged communication mediums for day-to-day business communication is where we are headed, and Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) technology is what is going to get us there. It’s being hailed – and actively leveraged – by leading communication platform vendors as the catalyst for the next phase of open communications over IP. For contact centres and enterprises, SIP is really good news – it’s easy to embed in your communications architecture and it will ensure that current investments (of which some are fast becoming ‘legacy’) are leveraged.

SIP is designed with the same philosophic principles in mind as Hypertext Transport Protocol (HTTP), which a decade ago made the WWW a reality by enabling browsers to access any server-based Web page within the Internet in a transport network agnostic way. Today, organisations have multi-vendor, multi-application and widely distributed communications systems, and it’s a challenge — they need a reliable way to integrate and optimise their network infrastructure.

The business imperatives are to reduce costs, drive revenue through a better customer experience, and ensure business continuity. Users, on the other hand, want greater mobility, ubiquitous access, optimal productivity, and the ability to work from anywhere. And then there is the typical IT support office who wants easy and flexible deployment, quick access to new capabilities, protection of existing network investments, greater control and the ability to measure performance, and the option to build or outsource the network.

SIP supports converged communication applications by placing control of the communication across distributed networked entities and smoothly integrating the various system levels. It’s easy to programme, highly scalable and integrates with the World Wide Web. By enabling seamless data and voice convergence in multi-vendor environments with multiple applications, SIP can provide powerful end-to-end solutions for enterprise environments. In a nutshell, SIP creates new possibilities for system flexibility, enabling organisations to pick the best of breed from a variety of vendors to create a seamless converged communication network.

A migration plan for SIP deployment doesn’t need to sacrifice existing communication capabilities. SIP entities are software components that can very easily be incorporated within existing network architecture as upgrades to an existing portfolio. This ensures maximum economic gain with minimal service disruption.